


It's a Ringing In My Ear

by thesleepingsatellite



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:56:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/pseuds/thesleepingsatellite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time she killed him, she did it with her hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Ringing In My Ear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



> Title from Suzanne Vega's "Blood Makes Noise".

The first time she killed him, she did it with her hands. 

Kara’s head hurt when she regained consciousness, a throbbing pain seated behind her eyes. She figured it must be near midday; sunlight penetrated her closed eyelids, bathing her vision in red. The light was so bright it was difficult to open her eyes, and when she did, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. 

_Caprica_. Not New Caprica, but old Caprica. She was lying on her bed in her old apartment, her face turned toward the window that overlooked the parking lot. Kara felt as though the universe had suddenly shifted sideways, depositing her back in the apartment she had occupied years ago. The pounding in her head and the stuffed-with-cotton-feeling in her mouth made her feel like she had been out drinking the night before. Blinking, she forced her blurry eyes to focus, and pushed herself up on shaking legs before staggering to the window.

She pressed her fingers against the glass, almost relieved when the view outside was that of the New Caprica administrative building, still under construction, rather than that miserable sea of cars. 

So, not home after all. Just a poor facsimile.

There was audible movement behind her, the soft thumps of footsteps and the small woosh of a door swinging open. Kara braced herself and spun to see Leoben framed in the door way, surveying her with eyes that traced her frame from her toes to where her fingertips touched the cool window. He finally met her eyes, and then that frakking cryptic smile crept over his features.

"Do you like it?" 

Kara swallowed, and then cast a glance around the room, cataloging the discrepancies: the blanket on the bed, the spartan light fixture, the furniture made of metal instead of solid wood. "Got a few things wrong," she drawled. 

He approached her, his hands held out in a wide, non-threatening pose. "We work with what we have, Kara. God will provide us with what we need in time."

"Right," she said, flicking her eyes from his hands, to his face, to the open doorway behind him. She cleared her throat and threw her head back, tossing her long hair behind her shoulder. Sam had liked her hair long, so she had grown it out just for him. Casting a glance out the window, she wondered where Sam was now. The last memory she had before waking up here was winding her way through the tented city towards their home, to hide him some place safe where the Cylons couldn’t find him so she could go out to fight without worrying about him getting into trouble. She hoped that he’d had the sense to stay in bed, fight off the pneumonia, but she knew the dumb bastard better than that. 

Kara pressed a hand against the window to steady herself. "How long're you gonna keep me here?"

"Keep you here?" Leoben said, drawing his eyebrows together. "Kara, this is home. Our home, yours and mine, just as God intended."

“You expect me to live here with you,” she asked. “What, as your prisoner?”

His eyebrows drew together. “Kara, no. I see the truths that float past you in the stream, the love that binds us together. You will understand in time. Until then, until you see the truth, this is your home.”

Kara ground her teeth together. "No frakking way," she said, and then threw a punch, because _frak that_ , she had a home, finally, and as familiar as this room was, this wasn’t it. His eyes flew closed when her fist connected with his nose with a satisfying crunch, his head jerking back under the force of the impact. His hands flew toward his face, and she darted around him to run out the bedroom door. 

When she dashed out of the hallway and into the living room, she came to a sudden stop, because the room was achingly familiar. Despite her reaction to Leoben’s words, _it was home_. It was the first place that she’d claimed as her own, without roommates or the overbearing presence of her mother. It was the same room that she’d first kissed Zak in, the room in which she’d emptied her soul onto blank canvases, the room in which she’d almost frakked Lee with Zak mere feet away. It was a faithful reproduction of her old quarters, minus the artwork she’d strewn across the bare walls after Zak’s accident, and the temptation to linger was strong. How did they even know what it had looked before she’d allowed her home to slide into a state of decay? 

Hearing a thump from behind her, Kara dashed up the stairs. She ran out the door, and instead of the brightly lit courtyard her apartment spilled into, she found herself in a long, grey concrete corridor.

"Kara, wait-" 

She looked back. 

He was on the stairs leading to the front door. Blood trickled out of his nose down onto his shirt and smeared against his cheek creating a red blush underneath patently sincere eyes. When he reached the top of the stairs, she rushed forward and swept one leg out. His legs went out underneath him and she pushed him backwards. He toppled down the hard concrete stairs in a series of sickening thuds.

She looked down to see Leoben lying in a misshapen heap at the bottom of the stairs, a bone poking through the flesh of his left arm, and one of his legs sprawled at an unnatural angle. The sleeve of his hideous shirt was slowly turning red as blood seeped out of his wounds. He wasn’t moving, and at first she thought that he was dead. Then, he uttered a broken moan. Kara cursed silently and walked down the stairs. She leaned over his prone body and he hissed in pain when she rolled him over onto his back. His face was bruised and bloodied, and there was a gash at his right temple. 

His eyes widened when he saw her, and he opened his mouth, swollen lips starting to form around words meant to manipulate and deceive. She reached down, grasped his head - slick with blood and sweat - and gave it a twist. 

\---

He’d left her alone with the corpse. During that time she’d thrown furniture at the windows, only to find them unbreakable. She’d evaluated the ventilation system, finding the ducts too small to fit even her shoulders through. She’d run down the hallway to find the entrance to her compound locked and barred. The only passersby were Cylons, usually the Simons and Dorals. They barely spared her a glance as she’d screamed herself hoarse. 

She was trapped, alone with a corpse that had begun to stink.

On the third day, Leoben returned with a Centurion, who carried the corpse away with neat efficiency. A carpet was thrown over the stain where the body had been. 

“You’ll understand in time, Kara,” he said with a smile, before pressing a kiss to her cheek. She shuddered and used her shirt sleeve to wipe at the spot where his lips had touched her skin. “God has a plan for us.”

Leoben brought with him meat and vegetables, and spoke in meandering ramblings as he prepared a meal for her. Her eyes followed the motion as the sharp knife in his hand sliced the carrots into even slices. 

“I’m sure he does,” she replied, licking her lips as he tipped the carrots into the pot of water on the stove.

She’d wait until he’d finished making dinner. It had been a while since she’d had a home-cooked meal.


End file.
